BEIJING - A total of 53 local Chinese officials were held accountable and received punishments due to four tainted milk powder cases.

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Eight were city-level officials and 28 worked at the county-level. A total of 17 of the 53 officials were discharged or removed from their posts, while others received demotion, demerit records or serious warnings.

Last Friday, local courts in the northern Chinese provinces of Shanxi and Hebei convicted and sentenced 14 people involved in the cases for producing or selling melamine-laced milk powder.

Two of the 14 convicts received life imprisonment, four received 10 to 15 year prison sentences and the others received lighter sentences.

Three years ago, melamine-contaminated milk powder killed at least six babies and sickened 300,000 others across the country.